February 18

"So that's what hay looks like."

Queen Mary I of England
(02/18/1516 – 11/17/1558)
English royalty , on evacuation from the palace
(sister of Elizabeth I; same dates as Audre Lorde)

"The multitude of books is a great evil. There is no limit to this fever for writing."

Martin Luther
(11/10/1483 – 02/18/1546)
German religious reformer ("Ninety-five Theses")

"If people only knew how hard I work to gain my mastery, it wouldn't seem so wonderful at all."

Michelangelo Buonarotti
(03/06/1475 – 02/18/1564)
Italian painter/sculptor ("Pietà")

"When the flower blooms, the bees come uninvited."

Ramakrishna Paramahamsa
(02/18/1836 – 08/16/1886)
Indian philosopher

"The theory of relativity is just as unacceptable to me as, say, the existence of the atom or other such dogmas."

Ernst Mach
(02/18/1838 – 02/19/1916)
German scientist
(died near his birthday)

"Every perfect traveler always creates the country where he travels."

Nikos Kazantzakis
(02/18/1883 – 10/26/1957)
Greek writer ("Zorba the Greek")

"The Brando school are grabbers, not lovers. If it wasn't that the script says they get the girl, they wouldn't."

Adolphe Menjou
(02/18/1890 – 10/29/1963)
US actor

"The constitution does not provide for first and second class citizens."

Wendell Willkie
(02/18/1892 – 10/08/1944)
US Presidential candidate

"Words make love with one another."

André Breton
(02/18/1896 – 09/28/1966)
French surrealist writer ("Surrealist Manifesto")

"It is something—it can be everything—to have found a fellow bird with whom you can sit among the rafters while the drinking and boasting and reciting and fighting go on below."

Wallace Stegner
(02/18/1909 – 04/13/1993)
US writer, teacher ("Angle of Repose")
(same dates as Milos Forman)

"This paper gives wrong solutions to trivial problems. The basic error, however, is not new."

Clifford Truesdell
(02/18/1919 – 01/14/2000)
US scientist ("Essays in the History of Mechanics") , from Mathematical Reviews 12, p. 561.

"The only two things you can truly depend upon are gravity and greed."

Jack Palance
(02/18/1919 – 11/10/2006)
US actor

"Good girls go to heaven, bad girls go everywhere."

Helen Gurley Brown
(02/18/1922 – 08/13/2012)
US writer ("Sex and the Single Girl")

"Good thoughts bear good fruit, bad thoughts bear bad fruit—and man is his own gardener."

James Lane Allen
(12/21/1849 – 02/18/1925)
US writer ("The Choir Invisible")

"In Mexico, an air conditioner is called a 'politician,' because it makes a lot of noise but doesn't work very well."

Len Deighton
(02/18/1929 – )
English writer ("The IPCRESS File")

"Bryn Mawr had done what a four-year dose of liberal education was designed to do: unfit her for eighty per cent of useful work of the world."

Toni Morrison
(02/18/1931 – 08/05/2019)
US writer ("The Bluest Eye")

"What I like about masturbation is that you don't have to talk afterwards."

Miloš Forman
(02/18/1932 – 04/13/2018)
Czech director ("One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest")
(same dates as Wallace Stegner)

"Cosmetics is a boon to every woman, but a girl's best friend is still a nearsighted man."

Yoko Ono
(02/18/1933 – )
Japanese artist ("Season of Glass")
(was married to John Lennon, mother of Sean Ono Lennon)

"The learning process is something you can incite, literally incite, like a riot."

Audre Lorde
(02/18/1934 – 11/17/1992)
US writer ("Zami: A New Spelling of My Name")
(same dates as Queen Mary)

"I think the measure of your success to a certain extent will be the amount of things written about you that aren't true."

Cybill Shepherd
(02/18/1950 – )
US actor ("The Last Picture Show")

"There are two ways to achieve happiness: one is to play the fool, the other is to be a fool."

Enrique Jardiel Poncela
(10/15/1901 – 02/18/1952)
Spanish writer ("A Decent Adultery")

"It's not the most intellectual job in the world, but I do have to know the letters."

Vanna White
(02/18/1957 – )
US model , on her "Wheel of Fortune" job

"There were certain perceptions that people had of me, you know... 'He's dumb,' or 'he's just got a pretty face,' or 'he's a thug,' or 'he can only do one thing.' I'm not so concerned with that now. Longevity's what it's about."

Matt Dillon
(02/18/1964 – )
US actor

"I don't care if he's purple, as long as he can rap!"

Dr. Dre
(02/18/1965 – )
US rap mogul , on Eminem

"The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears it is true."

J. Robert Oppenheimer
(04/22/1904 – 02/18/1967)
US physicist

"You can't be 16 forever."

Molly Ringwald
(02/18/1968 – )
US actor

"I've only been doing this fifty-four years. With a little experience, I might get better."

Harry Caray
(03/01/1914 – 02/18/1998)
US sportscaster

"You go back to the start of time. One cave guy was fighting another cave guy because his club was bigger than his or his woman had longer hair. That’s competition."

Dale Earnhardt
(04/29/1951 – 02/18/2001)
US NASCAR driver